Tambourine Man Bob still rattlin'

Back in the late Seventies, when I was 14, my school mate Ben Binns somehow
got hold of a couple of tickets for Bob Dylan's Blackbushe open-air concert
just down the road from where I grew up in Hampshire. It was a covert
operation, without our parents' knowledge. But somehow they found out and
we were grounded. Apparently our Bob was too subversive for our young
minds, wanting us to get stoned and so on. And this was at a time the Sex
Pistols and The Clash were ruling the airwaves!
I doubt Dylan still has the same effect on parents these days. Indeed, it's
probably the opposite. "Oh, you're going to Dylan. That's nice. Have a
Iovely time." He is now seen as a cuddly old geezer, (rather than a
rebellious, politically right-on maverick) who sings songs everyone has
heard of and is not thought of as a threat to anyone. Oh, how the times
have been a-changin'.
Bob Dylan made his Brighton debut last night before an enamoured sold-out
crowd of 5,000 at the Brighton Centre. Thirty years after his first UK hit,
he was in Sussex before an almost disbelieving crowd of Sixties' teenagers.
Backed by a four-piece band, the craggy 53-year-old living legend - who has
also become rather vain and/or shy, having banned official photographers
and anyone who fancied a snapshot for the album, from all of his UK tour -
has returned to a style that is in part more derivative of his earlier folk
days. He didn't really communicate through speech but he tends to talk
through his music and he put his (bent) back into the night's show, which
started off with Down In The Flood and ended with three encores.
But the early part of the night was a disappointment with the otherwise
perfect love song, I Want You, thrown away by, Dylan's new arrangement
while his vocals were drowned out by a bad mix and the antics of the
drummer who resembled Animal from the Muppets. But Dylan hadn't turned up
for the soundcheck earlier in the day and only arrived at the venue minutes
before he was due on stage for the 105-minute set, so he must take part of
the blame for this. Just Like A Woman was also not best presented before a
new arrangement of Tangled Up In Blue showed that there might be some light
in the proceedings. Then we entered an exalted period of three
semi-acoustic songs, including Hey, Mr Tambourine Man and Boots Of Spanish
Leather, which at last showed what everyone knew. We were in the presence
of a master songwriter. From then on, with Dylan's vocals sorted out, we
were treated to Dignity, Long Black Coat and a rocking Maggie's Farm,
before the first encore ushered in a near perfect Like A Rolling Stone, the
second encore It Ain't Me Babe and the third, I Shall Be Released.
He may no longer be a danger to the Establishment, but, when he puts his
mind to it he can entertain, and more important, still surprise people who
have seen him play for years. That takes some doing.

- Gary Edwards (Argus 950327)


Bob's full house

The novelties salesman outside the Brighton Centre wasn't having much luck.
The impressively long queues were the wrong market for his pink-and-green
neon necklaces. Dylan-fanciers are, by breed, sober, any traces of
adolescent whimsy long since expunged. They are also, most of them, of an
age where their last encounter with neon jewellery would have been at
Woodstock, the first one.
But Dylan is 53 himself, and on the first night of his British tour, wasn't
looking too bad with it. Skinny in black jeans and black wet-look shirt,
his hair a pruned version of the classic exploding mop, he could have
passed for a much younger legend. That is, if one was standing far enough
from the stage.
Yes, "standing". Dylan is playing smaller venues with balcony seating only
on this tour. Is this to cram in as many people as possible downstairs, or
to give them space to dance?
Silly question. Although several of the numbers during an105-minute show
were up-tempo, no one, except Dylan, danced: the proper response at a Dylan
gig is warm-yet-discreet applause.
The set was necessarily composed mainly of old - and I mean old -
favourites. They were jammed in, one after another: All Along The
Watchtower, Just Like A Woman, Tangled Up In Blue, and on and on.
There was an undeniable thrill about hearing them croaked out by one of
pop's few genuine living legends. Did I say "croaked"? His voice was less
croaky than wizened, as if he had been singing along to his own records
every day since 1961. However, its texture varied, from coarse on I Want
You to sensuously husky on Simple Twist Of Fate.
He did the first few songs guitarless, with a hand-mike. Now, this was
something. Dylan normally being encumbered by guitar and that harmonica
headpiece-gadget, it was remarkable to see him strolling about the stage,
rotating a foot when JJ Jackson's guitar-playing inspired him.
Sadly, it was the evening's only novelty. As mentioned, Dylan has no new
songs - his last couple of albums were covers of old folk tunes, and the
forthcoming Unplugged LP is full of his sixties classics. The Brighton set
was predominantly comprised of the latter, which, in a way, was fine. After
all, if fans were going to stand around a crowded hall for two hours,
better familiar hits than dollops of new, probably inferior, stuff.
Where it got problematic is that Dylan has been singing Like A Rolling
Stone for 30 years, and has lost all enthusiasm for it. The generation that
he was once the voice of is rebellious no more, and neither is he.
Obviously, he can't be blamed for nature taking its course. That said, his
descent to memory-lane balladeer doesn't make for much of a gig.
Once the frisson of the first few songs wore off, it became less than
exciting. Dylan's mumble obscured the words to Tangled Up in Blue (except,
ironically, the phrase "revolution in the air"). Still, he more than made
up for it with shrill blasts of harmonica on It Ain't Me, Babe, swaying
from foot to foot like Raging Bob, punch-drunk prizefighter.
His veteran backing band, which includes wonderful mandolin player Bucky
Baxter and Tony Garnier on double-bass, took a Garth Brooksian country
tack. But for an overly-macho drummer, they were a pleasure to listen to.
They would undoubtedly do well with a better singer.
There were moments. A lively Maggie's Farm was the one they would have
danced to, and The Man In The Long Black Coat slowly glided to a haunting
crescendo, Dylan and Jackson alternating shimmering guitar Iines. These
were the exceptions that proved the assertion that Dylan has had his day.
lncidentally, there was nothing in the way of visuals, and the show could
have used some. The sight of Dylan riding up and down in a Prince-style
phallus-shaped lift would have added a much-needed touch of levity to a
show trading on past glories.

- Caroline Sullivan